(Article taken from the Trinidad Guardian)

BY JUHEL BROWNE

Any party that can command 17.5 per cent of the votes of those who do not support either the Government or Opposition parties will win the next general election, says political leader of the Movement for National Development (MND) Garvin Nicholas.

Acquiring those votes will now be the main objective of an agreement between the MND and two of its older counterparts, who have joined forces to contest the next general election, constitutionally due next year.

The newly-formed MND, the older National Alliance for Reconstruction and the Democratic Party of T&T made the agreement yesterday.

The executives of all three parties met at the NAR headquarters, opposite Victoria Square south in Port-of-Spain, to conclude ongoing talks concerning formation of a larger third party to fight the ruling People’s National Movement and the Opposition United National Congress.

Nicholas, NAR political leader Dr Carson Charles and DPTT political leader Steve Alvarez announced their agreement at a press conference after their meeting yesterday.

The DPTT and the MND had previously stated they planned to contest all 41 parliamentary seats up for grabs in the next general election, but were not opposed to working with other parties.

Nicholas, responding to a question on a recent Nacta poll which said the ruling PNM could win the next election with a landslide victory, said the poll could only poll the two main parties functioning in T&T—the PNM and the UNC.

Nicholas said the PNM “would be lucky if they could command 23 per cent of the voting population now,” while “the UNC probably commands ten to 12 per cent of the voting population.

“So that you have 65 per cent of the population who support neither the PNM nor the UNC, all right, and that is the constituency that is up for grabs,” Nicholas added.

Any political institution or any party that could command half of that support would obviously beat out the PNM any day, Nicholas said.

“So that we must take the Nacta poll in perspective and this is how we are approaching it.”

Nicholas noted that the PNM commanded 30 per cent of the 60 per cent of votes in the 2002 general election.

“That means that 70 per cent of this T&T population do not support the PNM.”

The three parties have signed a memorandum of agreement to form the new third party and will establish various committees to formulate its structure.